Kukla's Korner Hockey

If Ilya Kovalchuk leads the Devils in scoring this season, it will be the fifth time in his career he has topped his team in that category (four times in Atlanta). He is among some prolific scorers who have never led the league in scoring:

Comments

It’s really boggling to realize that Gretzky, Lemieux, and Yzerman all played at basically the exact same time. At other times, Yzerman probably would have won not just one, but several Harts and Art Ross trophies. Instead Lemieux and Gretzky kept battling it out for them.

Yzerman’s best season was 88-89 with 155 pts. That’s a friggin’ lot, right? That’s the 14th best season ever, for the record. That very same season Gretzky had 168 pts (8th best ever) and Lemieux had 199 pts (5th best ever).

No denying the Yzerman’s greatness, but you do have to remember the wacky offensive totals of those times. He finished 3rd directly behind the other-wordly Lemieux/Gretzky duo only once (88-89), 3rd behind Gretzky/Messier in 89-90, and 4th behind Mario/Oates/Lafontaine in 92-93. He had 6 top 10 scoring finishes overall.

Reminds you how hard it is to stay at the top, every year. I think Gretzky was 1st 10x and 2nd or 3rd another 4x.

Posted by
Dave
on 04/02/12 at 12:17 AM ET

Forgot to add…Gordie Howe was top 5 in scoring 20(!) seasons, straight.